Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

Heroin Crisis Invading Public Places As Epidemic Gains Momentum Across Country

More and more users are overdosing in cars, fast food restaurants, public bathrooms and on mass transit.

The New York Times:
Heroin Epidemic Increasingly Seeps Into Public View
With heroin cheap and widely available on city streets throughout the country, users are making their buys and shooting up as soon as they can, often in public places. Police officers are routinely finding drug users — unconscious or dead — in cars, in the bathrooms of fast-food restaurants, on mass transit and in parks, hospitals and libraries. Nationally, 125 people a day die from overdosing on heroin and painkillers, and many more are revived, brought back from the brink of death — often in full public view. (Seelye, 3/6)

In other news, how a life-changing injection can dramatically change opioid recovery —

The Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune:
How A Shot Could Change A Drug Addict's Life
Late last August, Ryan Haman was ordered to spend a week in a cell at the Cascade County Detention Center. As an opioid addict, it definitely wasn't his first time in jail, but hopefully it would be his last. Haman would walk out of the jail clean after detoxing, as always. "I couldn't stay sober for more than a week." But this time, instead of relying on sheer force of will to keep his urges to inject himself with drugs like oxycodone or heroin at bay, Haman had an appointment to receive a shot that had the potential to change his life. (Fisher, 3/4)

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